The mental health care industry consists of (1) a variety of types of provider organizations-- for example, general and psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, and community agencies; and (2) a variety of "ownership arrangements", including governmental units (federal, state, country and local) private proprietary units (e.g., in for-profit hospitals and nursing homes), and in private "non-profit" units. From this complex observation, both positive and normative issues arise, and in this proposed study I plan to attack both, although primarily the former. My focus will be on the significance of the institutional forms through which case is provided to the mentally ill. differences in "behavior" across types of institutions will be estimated statistically in four principal dimensions of economic activity: (a) characteristics of the population served, (b) types and quality of inputs used, (c) types and quality of goods and services produced, and (d) the responsiveness of the organizations to changing demands and technological opportunities. Principal data to be used include (1) a massive (21 reel) data set containing IRS fincancial data on each nonprofit--including mental health care--organization; (2) a national probability sample sample of long-term care facilities (including psychiatric) facilities and nursing homes, for example) and of patients in them--the Survey of Institutionalized Persons; (3) individual state surveys (of which data from the Wisconsin survey are already in hand) that provide information about health care institutions--their facilities (number, types, utilization), personnel (29 categories), patients (demographic characteristics, type of care needed, source of payment), and (d) violations of regulations; and (4) the Survey of Giving, which provides data on donations of money and time. This research should increase basic understanding of the differences and similarities in behavior of private nonprofit, government, and proprietary organizations, and should also praovide evidence relevant to public policy questions about the ways in which the various forms of institutional ownership respond to regulatory constraints and incentives.